Subsistence, understood as enough to keep the laborers alive and enable the working class to just keep up its numbers, is the natural and generally the actual wage of labor.
A trace more when the labor is scarce, relative to demand, enabling larger families among laborers which then remove the scarcity of labor.
A trace less when labor is too abundant, forcing workers to have families so small the number of workers contracts.
In the face of this, of course, productivity gains in the economy as a whole go to increasing the opulence of the upper classes.
The controlling factor on family size is understood to be shockingly high infant mortality, often largely attributable to starvation.
He well understands the relevance of immigration policy as well as protective trade policy.
Apart from relative scarcity of labor, the only thing pushing wages higher than subsistence is legal interference or unionization.
Smith is well aware of the horrendous inequality of the bargaining position between individual employers and individual laborers, and claims there is anyway nearly always tacit or express collusion among employers to hold down wages.
He observes that the law generally forbids or undermines or makes as ineffective as possible any collective action among workers to push up wages, but not collusion among employers to hold them down.
Reading Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.
Showing posts with label Adam Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adam Smith. Show all posts
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Monday, December 29, 2014
So now socialized medicine is a litmus test for the whole left?
BBC Trending: Should a left-wing president go to a private hospital?
The question is specifically about Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who seems to spend a lot of time dealing with health issues.
Here in the US we have partially socialized the health insurance business, heavily regulating private insurers and also subsidizing premiums.
Socialized medicine like the British National Health Service, involving commitment to universal access to publicly owned and operated hospitals and clinics and health professionals who are public employees, is not on anyone's radar.
A system like Canada's based on universal coverage through a single public insurer, here generally referred to as "Medicare for all," is the most radical notion that enjoys any noticeable support.
The BBC headline is not very subtle socialist propaganda, blithely ignoring the existence of progressives who are not socialists and solutions that are progressive but not socialist.
In Britain and elsewhere, the more devout left have never learned the lessons taught by economists from Smith (The Wealth of Nations) to Hayek (The Constitution of Liberty) and the wretched economic histories of communist Russia, China, and North Korea.
Competition and free enterprise, whose importance was all but flatly denied in the stupidest work of pop liberal economic propaganda of the 20th Century, The Affluent Society, is crucial for keeping up and improving quality, as well as to encourage and reward innovation.
Writing in 1958, its author thought auto competition, chosen by him to exemplify the situation in general, was about the size of tail fins.
He could, I suppose, be forgiven for missing the progressive introduction under the spur of competition since then of air conditioning, AM/FM radio, window washers, automatic transmissions, power brakes and steering, power windows, the instant-start reliability of computerized, electronic ignition control, numerous safety features including front bucket seats, seat belts, air bags, and rear-view and even wrap-around cameras, constantly more fuel-efficient, cleaner, and more powerful engines even among the smallest, and now even driverless cars.
But he also missed all of the many and important improvements in cars from the days of the hand-cranked magneto ignition to the days of the Thunderbird, or at any rate missed the lesson to be drawn.
Interestingly, when the American president needs care he turns to his personal physician, a serving military officer.
And when he needs hospitalization he generally goes to Bethesda Naval Hospital, more formally known as Walter Reed.
The question is specifically about Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who seems to spend a lot of time dealing with health issues.
Here in the US we have partially socialized the health insurance business, heavily regulating private insurers and also subsidizing premiums.
Socialized medicine like the British National Health Service, involving commitment to universal access to publicly owned and operated hospitals and clinics and health professionals who are public employees, is not on anyone's radar.
A system like Canada's based on universal coverage through a single public insurer, here generally referred to as "Medicare for all," is the most radical notion that enjoys any noticeable support.
The BBC headline is not very subtle socialist propaganda, blithely ignoring the existence of progressives who are not socialists and solutions that are progressive but not socialist.
In Britain and elsewhere, the more devout left have never learned the lessons taught by economists from Smith (The Wealth of Nations) to Hayek (The Constitution of Liberty) and the wretched economic histories of communist Russia, China, and North Korea.
Competition and free enterprise, whose importance was all but flatly denied in the stupidest work of pop liberal economic propaganda of the 20th Century, The Affluent Society, is crucial for keeping up and improving quality, as well as to encourage and reward innovation.
Writing in 1958, its author thought auto competition, chosen by him to exemplify the situation in general, was about the size of tail fins.
He could, I suppose, be forgiven for missing the progressive introduction under the spur of competition since then of air conditioning, AM/FM radio, window washers, automatic transmissions, power brakes and steering, power windows, the instant-start reliability of computerized, electronic ignition control, numerous safety features including front bucket seats, seat belts, air bags, and rear-view and even wrap-around cameras, constantly more fuel-efficient, cleaner, and more powerful engines even among the smallest, and now even driverless cars.
But he also missed all of the many and important improvements in cars from the days of the hand-cranked magneto ignition to the days of the Thunderbird, or at any rate missed the lesson to be drawn.
Interestingly, when the American president needs care he turns to his personal physician, a serving military officer.
And when he needs hospitalization he generally goes to Bethesda Naval Hospital, more formally known as Walter Reed.
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